A Better Way to Get Tickets for EuRuKo

EuRuKo is one of the best Ruby conferences in Europe, and getting tickets is really hard.

Normal tickets are 65,- EURO and usually sell out quickly so make sure you are ready and waiting

Imagine, you have 200 tickets for an event but around 4,000 people trying to attend. Would you think of a better way to offer them? Maybe handle them like a rock concert: Open your point of sales at a specified time, and let people line up early?

Well, that’s the better idea? Do we really want to to do that? Maybe it’s good marketing for big record labels and artists who want to show off their popularity — but for the Ruby community?

EuRuKo makes rubists want to go, be on their computer, wait for the opening of the sale, and try to submit their order form at certain time. Obviously, it’s hard to get a ticket that way. Plus, you ask friends to try to get a ticket. Bottom line: The people with more friends and better connections get the tickets.

Allow anybody to apply for a ticket, paying with a credit card but blocking the amount like Kickstarter does, until a certain time. Then apply a random algorithm to award tickets. Confirm credit card transactions for those who got them, and release the money for those who didn’t.

I recognize all the effort that goes into organizing this kind of event. Maybe there’s a good reason this can’t be done. But if there’s not, please consider it.